[MarySunshine]

Instead of saying a premie was Alert and Active one time I said Alert and Oriented x3. So everyone laughed at me! It just came out of my mouth without even thinking about it...

[Hoosiernurse]

Originally Posted by desmodia

*********
ok, I agree that we use morbid humor to cope. God knows our job really sucks sometimes and it takes more than alittle FUNNY to tolerate it. HOWEVER, we have to remember that we should respect the dead. That dead man could have been YOUR dad, or grandad, or even husband, and how would you have felt if you sensed or God forbid...heard the nurses giggling and laughing??????? No, I am NOT "one of those", but I do try to rmember what we are here to do, and that is to give the BEST most PROFESSIONAL care to out patients and their families....

This was all I meant as well. I, too, have a crazy sense of humor at times (how can one not when raising three daughters?), but I don't feel that how long I've "been in the trenches" should have a thing to do with this kind of thing. I've been the person in the hospital bed before, so I know what that feels like. How funny would you find it if you walked into a room and saw a nurse doing something like that to your dead relative? Or as the above poster said, what if the family had heard this supposed "humor" from outside the room? I'm sure a lot of strange things go on that are meant for nurses to cope with the extremes of their job, but for me this incident would cross the line and is just sad.

I hope I never become so "seasoned" a nurse that I forget what human decency towards the dead is. I'm not questioning the original nurse's ability to be a fine nurse-as I'm sure she is, I'm questioning what she felt was funny.And I don't think many of the comments made about me on here have been kind or fair. I simply said I missed the original post's hilarity, and I suddenly am label as "one of those." That's okay. I think I'd rather BE one of "those", then.

I won't post anymore concerning this, as I seem to have created a sort of "side thread" without meaning to. Next time I'll just roll my eyes and sigh when I read something like that, I guess.

Cara

[MarySunshine]

Oh, I have one! This baby had a cleft palate with this protrusion of tissue and it was very large and distracting. Well, this nurse that had taken care of him for a while came in one shift after it had been surgically removed and another nurse got a funny idea. She spit out her chewing gum and rounded it out. She brought it in a cup to show the other nurse "Hey, remember [baby] and his lip...well, [the doctor] wanted me to save the specimen." She showed her the pink/red gum in the cup and the other nurse completely flipped out. Then the prankster nurse proceeded to pop the "specimen" in her mouth. At which point the victim nurse was hysterical with horror.

[tencat]

Originally Posted by MarySunshine

Oh, I have one! This baby had a cleft palate with this protrusion of tissue and it was very large and distracting. Well, this nurse that had taken care of him for a while came in one shift after it had been surgically removed and another nurse got a funny idea. She spit out her chewing gum and rounded it out. She brought it in a cup to show the other nurse "Hey, remember [baby] and his lip...well, [the doctor] wanted me to save the specimen." She showed her the pink/red gum in the cup and the other nurse completely flipped out. Then the prankster nurse proceeded to pop the "specimen" in her mouth. At which point the victim nurse was hysterical with horror.

BWAHAHA! This is one of the reasons I'm becoming a nurse. I have a sick sense of humor, and no one in nursing looks at me funny when I crack very inappropriate jokes.

I do think that making fun of a dead man is a little over the top.....I personally don't see what's funny about it, either. I guess there's just a time and a place for gallows humor, and that wasn't it.

[ARLadyRN]

I was working in scrubs (that tied) one day in the nursery and my scrub pants fell off. I caught them before they hit the floor, thank goodness noone was at the window, ha, ha.

[Spidey's mom]

Originally Posted by desmodia

*********
ok, I agree that we use morbid humor to cope. God knows our job really sucks sometimes and it takes more than alittle FUNNY to tolerate it. HOWEVER, we have to remember that we should respect the dead. That dead man could have been YOUR dad, or grandad, or even husband, and how would you have felt if you sensed or God forbid...heard the nurses giggling and laughing??????? No, I am NOT "one of those", but I do try to rmember what we are here to do, and that is to give the BEST most PROFESSIONAL care to out patients and their families....

I'm not one of "those" either but I have to admit that the story about using a dead man as a ventriloquist's dummy made me wince.

I live in a small town and work in a rural hospital. I know most of the people who come into our hospital. I know their families. I would never use "black humor" on a patient, dead or not.

When I first became a nurse one of the things I was afraid of was death. I learned an awesome lesson from a CNA. We did the post-mortum care of a man I knew who died of a long struggle with cancer. I found it to be a privilege to care for his body so his family could have some time to say goodbye. I consider it an honor. To use someone in the way the story went was very disrespectful.

Even in anatomy, our professor admonished us before we started that we were to treat our cadavers with respect and he would tolerate nothing less.

Black humor in the nurse's lounge - absolutely. But not practiced on a patient.

steph

[Mommy2Katiebaby]

A friend of mine was taking care of a quad in a Clinitron at home. (For newbies, this was a state of the art pressure relief bed that basically "floated" a patient on a cushion of very fine sand that had air jets blowing through it. I don't know if anyone uses them at all anymore.) This guy, who was very unpleasant anyway and who had ended up a quad as a result of getting shot during a drug deal, had *severe* diarrhea. Sadly, my poor friend turned this guy over and that's when the bottom sheet popped right off the Clinitron, sending her patient plummeting to the bottom of the bed through all that sand and (because of the diarrhea) effectively turning the bed into a giagantic litter box. But that's not the good part - the good part is she then had to get INTO the bed - sand, poop and all - to retrieve her patient...

I am sad to say, I did not witness this one, but she ended up in my shower afterward because I was close by!

SAME girl - picture a bedroom, a wound vac hooked to a wound that is *overflowing* with Pseudomonas drainage, a suction canister set on a shelf just slightly above head level, and then imagine what might happen if she hit the dresser the canister was on with her butt...

[elizabells]

They still use the sandbox beds in NY, at least. Oddly enough, we were taking care of a paraplegic guy on one of the sand beds who inexplicably passed really excessive gas and diarrhea every time you rolled him onto his side. Aaaaaand he had a stage IV decub on his ischium. So we rolled him (this was before we knew what the consequences would be) to assess. Thank god I was on the front side supporting his shoulder and hip - my partner leaned over to check the wound, and got a huuuuuuuge liquid stool about three inches from her face for her troubles. Then her steth fell in the puddle. :hatparty: and that's how we learned that a stage IV can turn into a rectal fistula if you're not careful...she couldn't figure out how the stool was coming out of two holes...

[Lacaza3]

Ok this isnt a story about a nurse but its a funny story about the Dr and we nurses got to see..The Plastic surgeon was working in the OR suite and yelled out to the Fellow Dr hey get some scrubs on and you can finish up on closing this patient..The Fellow Dr came out and said well I dont have scrubs here but a borrow the other Drs..he had scrubs on and shoes that were 3 sizes too big..
He scrubed in and proceeded...Everything was fine and we hear OPPSSS.
We said whats wrong DR... he said my scrub bottoms just fell to the floor ...
Sure enough there he was pants down to his ankles..He couldn't reach down because he would break sterilzation..He said would one of you reach down please and pull my briches up<he was a very cute and single dr>His face was so red
All the nurses busted out laughing ...When it got quite I said really loud.
Well a big Merry Christmas to us....< it was christmas time I thought that was a very nice present to see him in his cute underpants...HE HE..
Donna

[apaisRN]

I think the ventriloquist trick was inappropriate, but I can see how it would be funny during a long stressful shift where you had to look death in the eye more than once. It's a way to cope, although probably not the best one.